


Like Ships in the Night

by ilokheimsins



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, it fixes itself i promise, minor angst at the beginning, not-sex-sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 13:32:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4265049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilokheimsins/pseuds/ilokheimsins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kingsman isn't Kingsman without Harry around and Eggsy can't handle catching flickers of Harry where he no longer is, so he quits.</p>
<p>After he leaves, Harry wakes up and, upon hearing of Eggsy's resignation, goes to bring him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Ships in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> This gif you guys.
> 
> http://coffeeinallcaps.tumblr.com/post/123114428586
> 
> That is all.
> 
> Also you should totally listen to the song Ships in the Night because it was my theme song for this fic.

Eggsy hands in his resignation on a Thursday at nearly midnight.  He’s exhausted down to his very bones and Merlin looks much the same.

“You’re sure then?” The older man asks.

“Swear down,” Eggsy says, cracking a tired smile.

“I just can’t do this without Harry.”

***

Four months later (though it's really nearly eight for Harry), Harry wakes up on a Saturday.

At least that’s what the writing on the massive whiteboard is telling him.  He presses the button in his lap and there’s not much for a bit, long enough that Harry nearly dozes off again.  But then there’s the sound of Oxfords pounding down the hall and the door to Harry’s room nearly rebounds right back into Merlin’s face with how hard he throws it open.

They’re at a stalemate, Merlin panting because he just ran the mile from Merlin Branch to Medical instead of taking the tube like a sane man and Harry because he’s only just realized why Merlin looks like he’s about to break down in tears of relief.

Merlin speaks first, managing to pant out, “Tristan was a traitor, so we filled his position with Eggsy” before he collapses against the wall and tips his head back to catch his breath.

“You’re out of shape,” Harry says and he could smack himself.  Thirty years of friendship, more than seven months in a coma, and that just has to be the first thing that comes out of his mouth.  Merlin flips him off and pants a bit before speaking.

“Not all of our jobs require us to run through crowded markets at top speed,” Merlin huffs back, but his breathing is back under control and he’s looking significantly less winded than a moment ago.

“And I’ll have you know that aside from running I’m in perfect shape,” He grouses.

Merlin pushes himself to his feet and moves to the side of Harry’s bed, flicking on a penlight.  He moves it across Harry’s eyes and he obligingly keeps them open.  Merlin nods in satisfaction and scribbles a note down on the clipboard.

“Open,” Merlin says and Harry does so, letting Merlin shine the light down his throat.  That gets another hum of approval and another scribble.

The rest of the perfunctory tests go much the same, though Harry notices a fine tremor in his right hand that makes the glass of water Merlin gives him shake ever so slightly.  That one gets a frown from Merlin and a slightly longer scribble on the clipboard, enough that Harry knows he’ll have to go through some sort of therapy.

It’s only once he’s downed the glass of water, under Merlin’s careful scrutiny, that Harry places a cause to the niggling feeling of wrongness that’s plagued him ever since he woke up.

“Where’s Eggsy?”

Because there’s no way that Merlin didn’t immediately alert the boy and the lack of his presence either speaks to his being on a mission or something far worse that Harry refuses to think about.

Merlin’s face hardens and he sits down in the chair next to Harry’s bed, placing the clipboard next to Harry’s knee.  He folds his hands in front of him and, with his eyes trained on Harry’s face, says, “He resigned.”

The words feel like a physical blow, what with the way they punch all the air out of Harry’s lungs.  He stares at Merlin, unable to comprehend what he just said.

“No, no, that’s impossible,” Harry mumbles.  “He was so excited for it, he can’t have resigned.”

“He resigned because he couldn’t do it without you,” Merlin explains, soft and careful, like he isn’t sure what Harry will do in response to those words.

What he gets is silence as Harry struggles to process those words, tries to convince himself that this is an elaborate joke.  That Eggsy hasn’t truly quit and that this is all build up to Eggsy popping up from behind the door with a cheeky smile and a relieved “Harry!”

But he knows better.  He knows it like he knows the way Eggsy turned to him, bright when he was praised, flushed and heady when Harry slid a hand down the line of his spine, lips pinked and parted after sipping a martini and waiting for Harry’s approval.  And he knows that he cannot let this stand.

“Where is he?”

Merlin pushes his glasses up and says, “South London, I’ll give you all the details once you can move your hand without it shaking.  And do tell him that Tristan’s position is in dire need of being filled.  Gods help me if I have to train another round of recruits.”

“You should have filled it after he left,” Harry admonishes.

“I had faith that you would wake up,” Merlin says, plain and simple.

***

Two months after Harry wakes up, not that Eggsy knows that, Eggsy picks his way delicately over the minefield of broken glass on the floor over to the broom and dustpan in the corner.  He gazes out over the club and sighs gustily.  In the yellow sunlight streaming in through the windows, the damage looks much worse than it did the night before.  Though to be fair, it was hard to gauge the actual amount of damage through the throng of bodies.

God, how Eggsy hates bachelor and bachelorette parties.  Too much alcohol, too much perfume or cologne, too much everything.

He hates this job in general, but it’s the best paying one he’s found since he quit Kingsman and it’s the only one he’s managed to hold down for more than a couple weeks without punching some dickhead who thought he was for sale.  The pay still is nowhere near as good as his pay at Kingsman and that makes Eggsy regret his decision to quit, just for a moment.  Knowing that even though he ran Dean off, he can barely afford to keep them in the house from Kingsman, even with Merlin’s monthly stipend, makes him regret the decision every time.

But there’s not much he can do, he’s sure they’ve already filled Tristan’s position by now, and he really couldn’t do it anymore.  He knows Merlin and his Kingsman-certified psychiatrist were always telling him to compartmentalize and move on, but he kept seeing Harry flick around corners, just barely there, or catching Harry’s scent over his shoulder.  And he just couldn’t fucking do it anymore.  He keeps waiting for Harry’s praise, for the fond smile that graced the older man’s face when Eggsy did right.

“Unwin!”

Eggsy looks up at the call and finds his boss waving at the end of the bar, looking incredibly angry.  Eggsy minces his way over to the bar and sets the broom and dustpan against the bar before turning to look at his boss.

“You’re on shift tonight,” His boss says.  “Raymond got some kinda fuckin’ shit flu or sommat.”

He turns, obviously done after having dispensed this news, and he’s making his way back down the bar before Eggsy has the presence of mind to say, “I can’t work tonight.”

His boss turns back and Eggsy’s never been big on animal characterizations before, but a raging bull is pretty close to what his boss looks like right now, down to the flaring nostrils.

“Unwin, ye wanna keep this job, yer fuckin’ on shift tonight.  If ye skip out or ye don’ show up, don’ fuckin’ bother comin’ in tomorrow.”

He stomps off and Eggsy sighs again.  He’s been doing a lot of sighing these days, at work, at home, whenever he sees the fucking bills.  But he can’t do anything about it where he is right now, so he just dutifully cleans up all the glass and then heads home.

It’s raining like the end of days outside so Eggsy jams his snapback onto his head and flips his hood over it.  He hunches forward and makes a dash for it, his feet splashing through large puddles as he tears down the street towards the bus stop. 

He takes the way to his place that passes across the mouth of the cul-de-sac that leads to Harry’s and he glances at it, just like he does every time he passes by and he swears, for a moment, that he sees a shadow in the upper window.  But he shakes it off, chalking it up to rain and wishful thinking.

By the time he gets home, he’s sopping wet despite taking the bus most of the way.  His mum is gone for her shift at the diner, trying to make enough money to keep up with Daisy’s growing needs.  Eggsy checks in on Daisy before he shuffles his wet clothing into the washing machine and steps into the shower.

The water’s gloriously hot, even if it costs a pretty penny, and Eggsy luxuriates in it, even decides to use that ridiculously expensive body wash he nicked from Harry’s place.  He’s been rationing it out for when he really needs that whiff of Harry’s scent to encourage him.  And today is definitely one of those days.

He steps out of the shower and just breathes in the scent of Harry in the steam that billows through the room.  Tears prickle at his eyes, as they do every time he lets himself remember that it’s not really Harry standing right behind him.

Eggsy shakes himself out of it and towels off, tossing the towel into the washing machine as well.  He checks on Daisy one more time before stumbling up the stairs and passing out, face first, into his mattress.

***

Harry nearly flinches back from the window when Eggsy turns to look down the cul-de-sac.  But he keeps himself still, hoping that the rain will obscure him enough that Eggsy continues on.  Sure enough, Eggsy turns away and is out of sight only a few moments later.

Harry lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding before considering the careful arrangement of clothing laid out on his bed.  Merlin laughed at him earlier for preening, but damn it all, Harry wants to look so good Eggsy won’t be able to look away.  Though Merlin assures him that he could show up literally wearing a trash bin and Eggsy would still be unable to look away.

Harry chooses to believe that a good suit will help, because he refuses to wear a trash bin.  The suit is jet black, with a black tie and a crisp white shirt for underneath.  He figures that traditional is better, though he’s sure Eggsy would have loved that velvet suit he’d worn to Valentine’s.

No, better traditional.  The velvet suit can come out to play some other time.

***

Eggsy’s had approximately four and a half beers spilled on him in the two hours he’s been here so far and his shirt is varying degrees of wet and sticky.  There’s some kind of party going on and a bunch of posh upsiders are hanging about, lounging around like they expect Eggsy to come serve them.  He ignores them with practiced ease.  If they want a drink, they can fight their way to the bar like everyone else.

After another flapped hand in his direction, Eggsy pointedly turns away and starts gathering up beer bottles.  It’s like they’ve never heard of when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

And the people around here definitely do not click their fingers and wait around to get served.  He’s just brought a round of bottles back to the bar when a rolling wave of whistles and chatter starts up from the posh end of the bar, near the door.  Eggsy whips around, alert for trouble, and the sight of Harry strolling through the bar, confident and smirking at the attention lavished on him, makes his knees buckle.

He clutches at the edge of the bar and watches Harry make his way through the crowd, which parts like the sea did for Moses.  Eggsy’s eyes flit across him, darting to the cut of the suit around Harry’s waist, to the shined Oxfords, to the damnable Kingsman glasses, to the thin curve of his lips.  He stumbles away from the bar, eyes locked on Harry as he approaches.  Eggsy bumps up against a low table and stops, his jaw working uselessly as he tries to say something, anything, at the apparition in front of him.

Harry doesn’t stop until he’s nearly toe to toe with Eggsy.  He reaches a hand up, gentle as anything, and traces it up the line of Eggsy’s neck to cup his jaw.  Harry leans in to press a kiss to Eggsy’s forehead, to his nose, the dip of his cheek, his mouth, the corner of his jaw.

“I’m ever so sorry, my darling boy,” He whispers loud enough that he can be heard over the music still shattering through the air, but close enough that it’s only Eggsy’s.  That it’s a set of words meant only for Eggsy’s ears.

“Yer fuckin’ dead,” Eggsy says back.

“I know, my dear Eggsy, I know,” Harry says.  He still has that damned smile on his face, fond and sad and hopeful all at once.

Eggsy stares at him.  He thinks about how he wants to yell and shout and cry and punch Harry right in his goddamn perfect face.  But he needs it to be quiet for that, for them to be alone.  He needs Harry to hear every single thing he could possibly say about how much this hurt.

“How do I know yer real?” He asks instead of the million things that want to come out.

“However you wish to check, you may,” Harry says.

Eggsy settles for curving a hand around Harry’s neck and drawing him in for a kiss.  Harry goes easily and lets Eggsy explore before he tightens his grip on Eggsy’s jaw and deepens the kiss.  Eggsy moans loudly at the heat of Harry pressed against him, at the scent of his body wash and cologne surrounding him, at the slick slide of their mouths.

“Unwin!”

Eggsy breaks away from Harry to see his boss stomping over.

“What?”

“I don’t fuckin’ pay ye so ye can snog posh blokes on the clock!”

“Well,” Harry cuts in impatiently.  “It’s quite good that Eggsy no longer works at this establishment, isn’t it?”

Harry moves with purpose towards the exit, hand firmly clasped around Eggsy’s wrist.  The crowd parts, just as it did when he came in, but this time no one tries to reach a hand for him or try to flutter their lashes in his direction.  Not with the way he’s towing Eggsy towards the exit.

They run up the stairs and burst outside, into the clean night air.  Eggsy barely hears the bouncer wave one person in before Harry is spinning him and crowding him against the cold brick.

“Eggsy, my darling, I am so very sorry for being away for so long,” Harry apologizes before he ducks in to kiss Eggsy in earnest.  He bites down and pulls at Eggsy’s lower lip, soothing the bite with his tongue.  Eggsy fists his hands in Harry’s suit, uncaring of the fact that he’s no doubt wrinkling the fabric beyond repair.

“Eggsy…Eggsy…Eggsy!”

Eggsy yanks himself away from Harry on the third repetition of his name.  His mind’s fuzzed out and all he can really think about is the fact that Harry kisses like the world is ending and Eggsy is most definitely on board with that.

He blinks a couple of times in the direction of the voice until his vision coalesces into Tim, the bouncer, who’s staring at them with amusement tracked all over his face.

“Ye should prob’ly go home, mate.  I heard it’s a bit cold out to be losin’ yer trousers,” He says playfully.

Eggsy flips him off and drags Harry off.  The mood sobers after they hail a taxi and they’re quiet the whole ride.  Now that the initial flush of seeing Harry has worn off, all the anger and sadness comes flooding back and Eggsy has to bite his lip to keep from going off then and there.

They get off at Harry’s place, because Eggsy mentions that Daisy and his mum are at his.  Then he’s silent again until the door closes behind them and Harry turns the locks.  At the first touch of a hand on his shoulder, Eggsy whips around and tries to shout, “You fuckin’ left me, ye bloody wanker.”

It comes out as more of a croak and Eggsy isn’t the least bit surprised to find himself crying.  Harry pulls him into a hug and Eggsy shouts, swears, cries until everything he wants to say is out, until his throat is raw and he’s hiccoughing from crying too much.  Harry pets him, soothes him with murmured platitudes until he’s just sniffling.

“Oh my darling, darling boy,” Harry whispers.  He presses a kiss to the crown of Eggsy’s head before shuffling them towards the stairs.  Eggsy goes pliantly; lets Harry maneuver him to the bedroom, to the bed.

“My sweet Eggsy,” Harry says, pressing his lips against the underside of Eggsy’s jaw.

“I’m ever so sorry,” He mutters at the junction of Eggsy’s clavicles.

“I shouldn’t have left like that,” He whispers against the sweat soaked skin at the curve of Eggsy’s hip.

“I can’t promise I won’t again, but I’ll try,” He says to punctuate a kiss against the inside of Eggsy’s wrist.

“My sun, my moon, my stars,” He breathes against Eggsy’s mouth as he swallows the rapidly whispered declarations of love from the younger man.

“My dear, dear heart,” He presses against the beat of Eggsy’s heart as he fucks into Eggsy slow and languid.

“I love you,” He says sincerely, a secret for him and Eggsy alone.  That sends Eggsy over the edge and Harry pulls him close as he gasps and scrabbles at Harry’s back.

“And I will love you for as long as I can,” He promises as he presses a kiss to Eggsy’s forehead.

***

“I woke up about two months ago,” Harry says.

Eggsy is propped on his chest, face tilted up towards him as he explains what happened.

“Merlin only found me after you left Kingsman,” Harry murmurs.

Eggsy snorts at that, “Explains why he didn’t tell me.”

Harry’s glasses beep from the nightstand and Harry hits the speaker button on them.

“You’re late, the both of you,” Merlin states grandly and hangs up.

Hope seizes Eggsy and he can barely look at Harry, afraid that what he sees on the other man’s face will only disappoint him.  Harry takes a deep breath and tilts Eggsy’s face up so that he’s speaking to Eggsy and not Eggsy’s hair.

“I am offering you the chance to become a Kingsman.”

It’s a new start and Eggsy latches onto it immediately.

“A tailor?”

Harry replies, all soft smiles and indulgence, “A Kingsman agent.”

Eggsy leans closer, smirking cheekily, and says, “Like a spy.”

Harry sees it now, the new beginning and the road laid out ahead.  One where Eggsy isn’t stumbling alone in the dark but has his own path, where he doesn’t need Harry to be his guiding light anymore but simply needs Harry for Harry.

So he says, “Of sorts, interested?”

And he holds his breath because he doesn’t want to hear the flippant, “Do I got much choice?” that he’s so afraid he’s going to hear.

But Eggsy merely dots a kiss to his nose and pulls back to smile, blinding as the first rays of the sun in the morning.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me @ ilokheimsins on tumblr!


End file.
